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What is a lagkage?
In Danish, a lagkage is basically just a layer cake, and there are many different types that you’ll find in bakeries and patisseries in Denmark. So that’s the broad definition. But when people say “lagkage”, they often mean a Danish birthday cake, or fødselsdagslagkage. That’s because many of us grow up having this cake on our birthday (although sometimes a kagemand or kagekone instead, of course), and it’s a very important part of a Danish birthday celebration.
Growing up, our mom actually had to make two cakes for each birthday, as we each have a twin brother (fun fact). And we all loved lagkage so much that that’s exactly what we both wanted, for every single birthday. Eventually, after celebrating a few birthday parties in the US, all our friends caught on, and it became a real selling point for coming to the party in the first place. We say party – really, it was just friends coming over for afternoon cake. But it has always been a cherished tradition in our family, and we carry it on now, even if it means making the cake ourselves some years! If you want to read more about what we get up to in Denmark on our birthdays, check out our blog post we wrote about it back in 2022.
The classic lagkage – vanilla and raspberry
The classic lagkage, and the one that we grew up eating, is a vanilla and raspberry cake. The sponge itself is a simple vanilla sponge, but it gets layered together with a tart raspberry jam (or some people use fresh raspberries) and vanilla custard. This is known as kagecreme in Danish. In Denmark, you can buy all the components, including the sponge layers, jam, and custard, very easily at the grocery store. When you live abroad, you quickly learn that it’s worth making it yourself to get the best taste and texture!
You can check out our recipe here, which actually comes from our great-grandmother’s recipe. She used to make a lot of cakes for her 8 kids, many of whom liked to compete to see who could eat the most. Luckily, she wrote the recipe down for our mom, so we based our recipe on hers.
For the chocolate lovers – chocolate and strawberry
Now, the classic lagkage with vanilla and raspberry is undeniably delicious. We haven’t strayed very far from it in the past, especially for our birthdays, because it really is our favorite cake of all time. However, for the chocolate lovers out there, this chocolate Danish birthday cake might be more up your street! Today, we’re sharing our recipe for a very luxurious chocolate and strawberry lagkage. It’s definitely rich – there’s no denying that – but the freshness of the strawberry adds a great balance and cuts through the rich chocolate. It’s a flavor explosion and exactly the decadent showstopper you want for your birthday!
Chocolate Danish birthday cake – ingredients you’ll need
This cake has quite a few components to prepare: the sponge layers, the chocolate pastry cream (or custard), the strawberry jam, and the creme diplomat and powdered sugar icing that we use to decorate. Creme diplomat is just a fancy word for whipped cream combined with pastry cream, by the way. We would highly recommend prepping the custard and jam ahead of time, as well as baking the sponge if you have time. Then, the day before you want to serve the lagkage, assemble it. This gives the best final texture because it lets the fillings soak into the sponge a little bit.
So let’s run through what you’ll need for each component and then a few substitution ideas. For the sponge, you’ll need: eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, vegetable oil, coffee/espresso, milk, cocoa powder, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. To make the pastry cream, you’ll need: egg yolks, sugar, salt, vanilla extract, cornstarch, cocoa powder, milk, chocolate, and unsalted butter. For the jam, you’ll need strawberries and sugar. To decorate, you then need some heavy whipping cream, more cocoa powder, powdered sugar, water, sprinkles, and candles.
Possible substitutions
Instead of vegetable oil in the cake, you can use another neutral oil. We wouldn’t recommend replacing it with butter, because it might affect the texture of the cake. You can leave out the coffee if you don’t want to add it – just replace the liquid with extra milk or some water. We often use frozen strawberries for our jam instead of fresh, since they’re cheaper. But note that you may need to increase the cooking time a little bit, since they might release more liquid. If you have any questions about other substitutions, drop them in the comments, and we’ll do our best to answer!
How to make our chocolate Danish birthday cake
As mentioned above, it can be very helpful to prep some of these components ahead of time, just to make your life easier. And, the cake should be assembled the day before serving, for optimal taste and texture. Starting with the jam, simply combine the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer until thickened. Let this chill in the fridge.
For the pastry cream, gently heat up the milk until just before it boils. Combine the rest of the ingredients, apart from the chocolate and butter, in a large bowl. Pour half of the milk into the egg mixture, whisking continuously to temper the eggs but not scramble them. Then pour this back into the other half of the milk and continue to heat on the stove. It will thicken once the cornstarch activates, and then you can add the chocolate to melt it. The last step is to add the butter and cover with cling film to cool in the fridge.
The sponge layers come together pretty easily, as we just make 2 cakes in 9-inch cake pans, then later cut them in half so we have 4 layers. The batter is oil-based, so we start by whisking up the eggs and sugar until very light in color, then adding in the wet and dry ingredients in alternating batches, until everything is well-combined. Pour into the tins and bake. If you have time, this is also great to do ahead of time, as you can just wrap the cakes in cling film and refrigerate overnight. They also tend to be easier to cut in half when they’re cold from the fridge.
Assembly and decoration
It’s assembly time! The day before you want to serve the cake, cut the 2 cakes in half so that you have 4 layers. Then, stack the cake, adding a layer of chocolate pastry cream and strawberry jam in between each layer. You’ll end up with 4 layers of sponge and 3 layers of filling. Don’t skimp on the pastry cream filling, but reserve about 1/4 to add to the whipped cream for decoration. Cover the cake with cling film and refrigerate until the next day.
When you’re ready to decorate your chocolate Danish birthday cake, make a simple chocolate powdered sugar icing. You don’t want it super runny, so add some more powdered sugar until you have what we would call a spreadable consistency. Pour or spread this on the top of the cake, and then add any sprinkles you’d like to use. We do this first because the piped whipped cream will look much cleaner this way!
Then, whip up some heavy cream until it reaches almost stiff peaks. Try not to overwhip it, although this can be tricky because you want it stable enough to pipe. Add your pastry cream and whip together (probably no more than 30 seconds), keeping a close eye on the mixture. Gently fold together if there are any remaining streaks and then add to a piping bag. Pipe this around the outside of the cake, moving the piping bag up and down around the sides to create the nice flowy lines. Feel free to add some extra dollops on top. Decorate with candles and fresh strawberries as a nice finishing touch!
Chokoladelagkage (Chocolate Danish Birthday Cake)
This chocolate Danish birthday cake is beyond your wildest dreams, with layers of chocolate cake, chocolate pastry cream, and strawberry jam.
Ingredients
CHOCOLATE CAKE BATTER (FOR A 4-LAYER CAKE)
- 250 grams granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 180 ml vegetable oil
- 90 ml coffee or espresso (you can also dissolve 1 tsp instant coffee in 90 ml water)
- 90 ml milk
- 1½ tsp vanilla extract
- 80 grams cocoa powder
- 220 grams all purpose flour
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
PASTRY CREAM
- 1½ – 2 portions chocolate kagecreme (pastry cream) (this is a lot of pastry cream!! We make 2 portions of our recipe and then split 3/4 of it between the cake layers and use the remaining 1/4 to mix in with the whipped cream for piping and decorating the cake)
JAM
- 400 grams fresh strawberries (you can also use frozen)
- 150 grams granulated sugar
DECORATION
- 475 ml heavy whipping cream
- Powdered sugar
- Cocoa powder
- Water
- Sprinkles, candles, fresh strawberries, freeze-dried strawberries, chocolate shavings, etc.!
Instructions
TO MAKE THE FILLINGS:
- Make the chocolate kagecreme (1½ – 2 portions: if you prefer thinner layers of pastry cream, make 1½ portions, but if you like lots of pastry cream in your cake, go for 2!) following the steps in our recipe. We would recommend doing this (at the latest) the morning of the day you are assembling the lagkage. You can also make the pastry cream the day before that. Once done, place in the fridge to chill completely.
- Make strawberry jam by combining strawberries and sugar in a pot on the stove and cooking over medium heat until all the sugar dissolves; lower the heat and let the jam simmer until thickened enough to see the bottom of the pot for a second when you run a spatula along the bottom of the pan. Place in a container to cool and move to the fridge to chill completely.
Make a day ahead or the morning of assembling the cake to save time! You can also save time by using store-bought custard and jam.
TO MAKE THE CAKE:
- Butter or oil two cake pans (we used 9-inch cake pans) and line the bottoms with parchment paper by measuring out a square of parchment paper that fills the bottom, pressing it into the pan so you get the outline of a circle, and cutting out the circle. If you have pre-cut round sheets of parchment, you can use those!
- Preheat the oven to 350 F (175 C).
- Add your room temperature eggs and granulated sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer or a mixing bowl. Using your stand mixer, or a hand mixer, whisk together the sugar and eggs for about 5 minutes until the mixture is lightened considerably and has reached ribbon stage: when you lift the whisk out of the mixture, it should flow off the whisk and sit for a second or two on the surface of the mixture before sinking in.
- Mix together coffee/espresso with milk in a small bowl/measuring cup. You can mix hot coffee and cold milk, and it will even out the temperature, but make sure the mixture is not too cold – heat it up in the microwave for short 5 second bursts if needed to get it closer to room temperature.
- Add the vanilla extract and oil to the coffee/milk mixture and stir with a spoon to combine (it will not combine entirely – the oil will naturally separate).
- Combine your dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt) in a separate bowl.
- Now it's time to combine the ingredients for the batter. Add half of the wet ingredients to the mixer and run the mixer for just around 5-10 seconds.
- Then, sift in half of the dry ingredients and do the same, running the mixer for 5-10 seconds. It's important to sift when using cocoa powder since it can be so lumpy!
- Repeat with the rest of the wet, running the mixer for 5-10 seconds, then the rest of the dry, running the mixer for 5-10 seconds or until everything looks incorporated. Give the final mixture some folds with a rubber spatula to make sure it's well combined, but do not overmix!
- Divide the mixture evenly between the two cake pans and place in the oven. To be completely accurate, you can weigh the batter into the pans.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.
- After you remove the cakes from the oven, let them cool for about 5 minutes. Then run a knife along the edge of the pans and remove the cakes from the pan, leaving them to cool on a wire rack. If you're doing this the day before assembly, wrap them in cling film and refrigerate until you're ready to assemble the cake layers. If you don't have room in the fridge, wrapping them and leaving them at room temp will also work just fine.
TO ASSEMBLE:
- Once the cakes are cooled and you're ready to assemble the cake, trim the tops off (if the cakes are domed on top), and cut each sponge in half. This can be tricky to get completely even, so don't worry if it isn't perfect! The best tip that we have is to keep the knife completely horizontal as you cut through it, and get down to eye level with the knife!
- Make sure you have your chocolate pastry cream and jam ready (cooled down/chilled) at this stage!
- To assemble: on a large plate or cake stand, start with a layer of sponge, then add a layer of chocolate pastry cream. We use 1/4 of the pastry cream for this layer. Spread evenly across the sponge all the way to the edges with a knife.
- Add one third of the jam on top of the pastry cream. We like a lot of jam in ours, but adjust according to your taste! Spread evenly across the pastry cream, also going all the way to the edges.
- Repeat this – sponge, pastry cream, jam. Repeat again – sponge, pastry cream, jam. You should now have used up all of your jam and have 1/4 of the pastry cream remaining.
- Place the final layer of sponge on top.
- Cover the cake in plastic wrap and let it rest overnight (8-12 hours) in the refrigerator or until you're ready to serve the cake. This will allow the layers to hold together a little bit better! We would recommend chilling it for at least a few hours if you still want to serve it the same day, but we've also served it within an hour of assembly, and it's still been perfectly delicious.
- Make sure to save the remaining pastry cream to add to the whipped cream. Keep in the fridge until ready to use.
Assemble the night before serving to let the cake firm up in the fridge overnight.
TO DECORATE
- The next day, prepare your cake decorations by making a thick icing, combining about a cup of powdered sugar with a teaspoon of cocoa powder, and a very small amount of water until you reach the desired consistency. We usually don't measure out the amounts that we use, but feel free to add more powdered water or sugar to get more icing!
- Whip your heavy whipping cream using a stand mixer, a hand mixer, or a whisk and a bowl until it just reaches stiff peaks.
- Add the remaining chocolate pastry cream to the whipped cream and whisk together, making sure not to overwhip as it can then get runny – no more than 30 seconds or so. If streaks remain, you can fold the mix together with a spatula! Add the mixture to a piping bag.
- Pour the powdered sugar icing glaze on top of the cake and spread to the edges; try not to let the icing go over the edge! It's best if it's a thicker consistency.
- Add some sprinkles on top of the glaze. You can also add fresh fruit, like sliced strawberries!
- Pipe the prepared chocolate whipped cream along the edges of the cake – the specifics are up to you! We usually pipe in a continuous up and down pattern, going right up over the edge so that the whipped cream doesn't slide down. You can also do dots of whipped cream all along the edge, or just use a knife to add the whipped cream around the edges!
- Decorate the cake with candles, more sprinkles, dots of whipped cream, fresh fruit, a written message, or whatever you like!
- Light the candles on the cake and enjoy!
